


From Eden

by AliceInSomewhereland



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3495362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceInSomewhereland/pseuds/AliceInSomewhereland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He sees her through the sliding glass door, leaning on the railing and staring up at the moon, her hair glowing silver against the city skyline. She’s silhouetted, as always, in that slightly golden light, though it’s so delicate now that perhaps it’s nothing more than starlight. He wonders if it will fade after she’s been on Earth for centuries instead of just decades. He wonders if he has it too, if he ever had it, if his past was just a dream and he’s actually just some unlucky soul, chosen to wander the centuries aimlessly, solitarily.</p><p>Bellarke are fallen angels in modern times, and find solace in their exile in one another.</p><p>Prompted by tumblr user samthenardier to: “incorporate the phrases ‘i didn’t do it’ + ‘we’re a lot alike’ based on the hozier song of your choosing.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Eden

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted by tumblr user samthenardier to: “incorporate the phrases ‘i didn’t do it’ + ‘we’re a lot alike’ based on the hozier song of your choosing.” 
> 
> Now, my favorite Hozier song is "Work Song," and everyone needs to go listen to it. However, I was listening to "From Eden," and was inspired to write Bellarke as fallen angels who find one another on Earth. 
> 
> Karen, I hope you like.
> 
> And as always, thanks to my lovely beta, Inge (dutchmoxie)!

_i. honey, you're familiar, like my mirror years ago_

It's a bright, clear day, and the street is shaded with growing leaves as a man walks along the sidewalk. He wears a leather jacket, and dark shades, and has a cigarette hanging from his mouth, glancing in the windows of the shops and restaurants as he goes.

The city is alive around him, but he hardly notices anymore, as days become years and years become decades, and it's been so long now it feels more like a burden than an opportunity.

He's standing on a corner, waiting for the light to turn so he can cross, contemplating just running into traffic and risking getting hit _again_. It's really more a bother than anything else - he's been hit on three separate occasions, and each time, his recovery is "miraculous" and he is a "medical anomaly." Being called miraculous makes his lip curl; he hasn't been a part of _that_ for a long, long time.

He happens to glance into the large windows of the coffee shop as he waits, shifting his weight from foot to foot impatiently, and freezes when he sees her; her back is to him, her golden hair plaited elegantly, and it could be _anyone_ , really, but no. It's her. It has to be.

He enters the shop without a second thought, more surprised than anything, trying not to remember the last time they were in the same place at the same time. He wonders if Hell is about to freeze over.

She's bent over a book, silhouetted in a pale golden light that he's certain only he can see, as though she's drawn on the energy of the electricity in the room and captured it for herself, or perhaps as though she's _creating_ it on her own and everything else is just a bit dimmer in her presence. For a second he stands there moronically, debating whether to approach her.

Then he walks over to her table, clearing his throat, and she's startled out of whatever world she's found herself in, and her eyes widen in shock.

After a moment, she finds her voice. " _Abaddon_ ," she whispers, seeming lost for any other words.

He tosses her a half smile, pretending hearing _that_ name doesn't hurt, and she glances around surreptitiously, apparently worried that someone might have overheard.

"Actually, it's 'Bellamy' these days. Bellamy Blake," he replies easily.

She stares, just long enough that the silence becomes awkward. When he clears his throat and looks pointedly at the seat, she starts, and gestures for him to sit.

"So, what's up, Princess?" he asks conversationally.

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly, and replies, "You can call me Clarke. Clarke Griffin."

Bellamy shrugs. "I think I'll stick with 'princess,' but thanks."

Clarke just grins.

They stare at one another for a moment, neither too sure of what to say, and finally he offers to buy her another coffee.

When he returns with one for her and one for him, she gives him a genuine smile, and he's struck with a memory of her, all golden and bright and ethereal, standing with _her_ kind in the gardens that used to be their home. Back then, she was Sariel, Angel of Healing and Wisdom, and was beloved and revered by her superiors, equals, and subordinates alike.

They had rarely spoken in those days, but he remembered her all the same; he was The Destroyer, an Angel of Death, and traveled in circles far removed from hers.

He had been cast out, banished for eternity, accused of being a part of Lucifer's Army. And she….

"What are you doing here?" he asks, suddenly confused, suddenly remembering exactly where they are.

Clarke face falls a bit and she looks just slightly morose as she quietly replies, "I, along with one hundred others, were _dispatched_ to Earth to watch over humanity…. We are the _grigori_ ," she adds after a moment of silence, using the ancient word for the Watchers.

He does not miss the bitter note her voice takes, but chooses, instead of inquiring, to gently tease her.

"And you're doing that by sitting in a coffee shop in New York City, reading a book?"

She smiles at him then, just for a moment, and Bellamy is relieved that it's genuine.

"I'm a doctor and a scientist. That's how I help."

It amazes him.

"You know all the secrets to the universe, and you're content to just sit there and tinker with their science toys while they barely brush at the scope of understanding?" he asks, astonished.

She scoffs. "Not _all_ the secrets to the universe," she mumbles, adding, "I'm here to _watch_ them, to guide them. I give them a push in the right direction from time to time, or a push away if the time's not right. I give them the tools to discover what they're ready for."

"That's admirable," he responds, and she smiles shyly, which only makes his own grin wider.

"I've seen your sister, Azrael - er, Octavia," she announces after another short lapse in conversation. "She descended with us, actually."

"Where? When?"

"Oh, about… fifty years ago or so, I suppose. She's been with a Nephilim named Lincoln, and they've living in Iceland. I think she gets to be wild there."

Bellamy nods. He had no idea that there had been any of his kind sent to Earth since the original band of the Fallen. He tries not to let it sting that she's been here for who-knows-how-long and never sought him out, never even let him know. He wonders if she's ashamed of him, but it's Octavia - she may be the other Angel of Death, meant to guide departed souls from this life to the next, but she was never anything but affectionate and incredibly loving and cheerful.

"A Nephilim," he repeats, trying not to appear judgmental or disapproving.

The news that she's shacking up with a Nephilim is a surprise, but he supposes that she deserves to be happy, and at least whoever this Lincoln is, he's half Angel and can therefore better understand and care for her.

Clarke shrugs. "Two of the _grigori_ , Miller and Monty, ran a speakeasy in Manhattan in the 1920s. Monty made the _best_ moonshine, Raven and I would always take some with us when we went to Paris…. Anyway, they met there. They're happy."

He nods, trying to process the news. He'll have to make it a point to seek her out. She'll be glad to see him, he decides.

Clarke is smiling at him as he processes the news, and when he catches her eye, Bellamy forgets about the problems of the past, just for a moment.

Hesitantly, she asks, "Listen, I'm going to a party tonight. A few of the Fallen have settled here in New York, and we're getting together. Would you want to come along?" She chews on her lip at the end of the question, and it's part tantalizing, part annoying, and he wonders when he became so susceptible to human feelings.

"Yes," he answers automatically, pushing down the tentative sensation in his chest, running a hand through his mop of dark hair.

She seems relieved, and smiles at him warmly, and suddenly he knows he's in trouble.

*****

_ii. babe, there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?_

The party is awkward at first, to say the least, as a sea of once-familiar faces inspect him, all skepticality and surprise, and he wonders if they can _smell_ the humanity on him, if they've even been here long enough to begin to notice it themselves. It happens quickly, and it's a burden.

Clarke tries to smooth things over, all excitement and personality as she attempts to convince a bunch of _grigori_ that their last memory of him is wrong.

They accept him grudgingly, and some are kinder than others. A few he doesn't even remember from before, and he finds he prefers it; at least this way he can pretend they're just humans.

They don't ignore him, precisely, but they don't go out of their way to include him in the goings-on either. It makes him bitter, knowing that even after a few thousand years, he hadn't been forgiven for crimes he was only barely involved with in his youth.

After a while, Bellamy notices that Clarke has disappeared. He pokes around the various rooms of the apartment, receiving a few suspicious glares or curious glances, until Leliel - no, here she's called Raven - seems to take pity on him.

"She's outside," is all she says, surveying him with unveiled interest through obsidian eyes, and Bellamy thinks that it's fitting that the Angel of Night just happens to be the one who knows that Clarke has disappeared into the darkness.

He sees her through the sliding glass door, leaning on the railing and staring up at the moon, her hair glowing silver against the city skyline. She's silhouetted, as always, in that slightly golden light, though it's so delicate now that perhaps it's nothing more than starlight. He wonders if it will fade after she's been on Earth for centuries instead of just decades. He wonders if he has it too, if he ever had it, if his past was just a dream and he's actually just some unlucky soul, chosen to wander the centuries aimlessly, solitarily.

He joins her on the terrace then, lighting a cigarette, more out of a desire to give his hands something to do than out of dependence. Angels, even fallen ones, don't pick up on impulsions the same way humankind does.

She doesn't look at him, but she scoffs nonetheless. "That's a disgusting habit."

"It's not like it'll kill me," he retorts, flinching at his own vitriol. He flicks some ash off the end of the cigarette, but does not bring it again to his lips, choosing instead to let it smolder, as though doing so will burn away his own pain.

Clarke says nothing, only continues to look at the stars, at the moon, a wistful look on her face.

Bellamy studies her for a long moment before speaking. "You miss it," he observes.

"Yes." Her voice is a light breeze, a whisper of things long forgotten, things lost to the years, replaced only with yearning.

He's surprised by how much it hurts him to know that she is in pain; her melancholy clings to her like the golden light, like nostalgia, like the last tendrils of sleep after waking in the middle of a dream. He doesn't know precisely why the _grigori_ are here, but he's sure it's not as simple as she's made it seem. With their kind, it never is.

"Why are you here, Sariel?" he asks quietly, unable to stop himself. "What happened in the garden?"

For a long time she doesn't respond, just stares unblinkingly at the cityscape, the moon, the few visible stars, and he can tell that she's lost somewhere else behind her eyes, seeing things long past.

When she speaks, her voice is disconsolate, and she doesn't quite answer his question. He wonders if she even heard it at all.

"Not today, Abaddon."

*****

_iii. babe, there's something lonesome about you, something so wholesome about you, get closer to me_

It's the first time he's ever had her over to his apartment, and Bellamy is rather surprised at how anxious her presence makes him, as though she somehow holds the key to his salvation in the reverent brushes of her fingertips as she inspects his collection of artifacts.

He just stands there, watching carefully, as Clarke reads through the list of books on the built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, gazes at the Greek pots and the _katana_ and so many other things on the mantle and walls.

She gasps, and he starts - he can't help it, he's always so tetchy when it comes to these ancient items, his constant friends across the centuries. She's gently pulling at a volume, one that looks so ancient it's a wonder it hasn't turned to dust. It tugs at his heartstrings, seeing the text she's chosen, and he reaches out, unable to stop himself from helping her, absently trying to figure out when she got so under his skin that he lets her touch his most prized possession. His fingers brush against hers and he tries to ignore the electricity that hums between them as he pulls it from the shelf.

"You were there?" she whispers, completely in awe of the book and of him, glancing between them as though she were a child again. She looks practically giddy, and Bellamy decides right away that he prefers her this way, happy and innocent and _young_.

He clears his throat, knowing that she wants an explanation without even being asked.

"I went to Alexandria during the Ptolemaic dynasty, to study, to learn as much as I could." As he spoke, Clarke carefully flipped through the ancient parchment pages, creased from age and use, drinking in the faded hieroglyphs with an almost maniacal look in her eye.

"Alexandria was a port city," Bellamy continued, "used to strange people coming to see the Library, so I brought an old book to give them, and they let me stay, eventually gave me work. We used to catalog and sort the books that the ships anchored at the port brought. Eventually one of the researchers, who was doing his best to read through as many books and scrolls as possible, figured out who I was. They were much quicker to believe in us, in those days.

"When the Library caught fire, I tried to help them save what could be saved. All that knowledge, lost…."

She glances up at him, seeming a little surprised, and he can practically see _history nerd_ formed on her lips.

"This was given to me as a gift, for my help. It's a book about Anubis, the Egyptian God of Death," he adds, reminded that she may not be able to read the hieroglyphs.

She's obviously surprised by that, but he keeps his face devoid of emotion.

After a few more minutes of careful study, she closes the book and hands it to him. "What was it like?" she asks, still sounding as though she's lost in a dream, and he's struck by the desire to go there, to take her to Alexandria and show her where the great library had been, and he wishes he could have shown it to her back in its prime.

Bellamy stills contemplatively as he replaces the ancient book on the shelf, remembering the time he had passed there; after a moment, he quietly replies, "It was like Heaven."

Her face falls at that, and Sariel is back, all her worries and sadness and cares once more carried on her youthful face.

He goes to her then, where she's standing in the center of his apartment looking so lonely and so small, and in that moment he wants to reach out and touch every inch of her, to pull her to him and never let her go, but he resists the urge. Instead, he reaches down, slipping his warm hand into her cold one, pulling it between them and inspecting its delicate creases and patterns. Her hands have never seen hard labor, not like his. Even Angels have to work, especially when they're Fallen, cast out of someone else's idea of paradise.

"We're a lot alike," he murmurs at her, bringing his eyes up from her hand to meet her slightly startled gaze.

Clarke's lips part, and he's aware that she's leaning a little closer to him, but the confusion in her eyes stops him from taking that leap.

"When I was first expelled, along with Lucifer and his army, I was free, for the first time. But centuries here, the isolation…. I didn't have anyone. It was Hell. But I got used to it, and so will you. You have friends. You won't be alone forever, Clarke."

She gives him a look that he can't read, and it sends a shiver up his spine, the way her voice washes like water over him.

"I hope not."

When he finally kisses her, she tastes like sunlight and ruin.

*****

_iv. babe, there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, where to begin?_

"I spoke to Octavia," Bellamy announces one day as he lets himself into her and Raven's apartment. Clarke twists in her place on the couch to look at him; if she's startled by his arrival, she doesn't show it. "She's coming in a few weeks, and bringing the Nephilim with her."

"'The Nephilim' has a name, Bellamy," she chides mildly, turning back around. She sounds far away, off in a dreamland, staring at the wall before her as though she can see through it and off into some far away land. He spies her sketchbook spread across her lap, her charcoals dumped haphazardly on the coffee table, and wishes he could follow her into her mind.

He drops her keys on the table and pulls the bottle of red wine from its brown bag, then presses a kiss to her head before retreating to the kitchen to find clean wine glasses. She's humming a tune, one that he recognizes from the old days, and he has to fight the rage that builds within him.

He returns then, opening the bottle and pouring two glasses, drawling a quiet _cheers_ in his deep cadence and clinking his glass against hers. She barely sees him, so wrapped up she is in her art, and Bellamy wonders idly when they became so _domestic_ ; whether or not they could or should call their connection a relationship is still a mystery. He's not concerned - it's not like they have anything _but_ time to figure things out.

He glances over her shoulder at her picture then, wanting to see what's got her so entranced that she can barely look up from the page. It takes him only a moment to process what he sees before his blood runs cold. It's an angel - shirtless, pants torn, with a mop of dark hair and a face dusted with freckles; he's reaching with slender, muscled arms towards the top of the page, a pained expression on his face, eyes the color of onyx trained on the dark clouds above him. Intricate, huge, _black_ wings sprout from his back, and he can almost see them flapping, fighting, to no avail. A thorned vine is wrapped around a slim ankle, dragging him down towards a thicket that seems to be a garden of Hell.

"Azrael and Abaddon, together again," Clarke remarks in a sing-song voice, smudging the drawing with practiced fingers.

Bellamy flinches when she speaks, and despite her sheer talent and mild disposition, despite his feelings for her and his desire to protect what they've created at all costs, a fury builds within him, hot and quick and ruinous, and his words, when he manages to speak, escape from his lips cold and venomous.

" _That's not my name_ ," he hisses, voice shaking with the pure, unadulterated anger of a thousand years.

His rage startles her, and she looks at him, eyes wide and mouth gaping, her charcoal-smeared fingertips still over the drawing.

"I haven't been Abaddon for at least a millennium," he continues, spitting the words bitterly.

Clarke still looks surprised, but her brow is mostly furrowed in confusion. "Just because you've been living among humans doesn't mean you stop being one of us," she says slowly, her voice and features neutral. "You're still Abaddon. You're still an angel."

He scoffs and turns away, hears the sketchbook gently moved to the table and the crinkle of the couch as she stands.

"Someday we'll go home," she says wistfully, and he knows without looking that she's staring out the window, gazing longingly at the stars. "Someday we'll be forgiven."

" _Bullshit_ ," he retorts, turning just in time to see her flinch. "We're never going back to the Garden. We'll be here for eternity, until this world ends. And then I don't know."

Clarke's features go from cold to understanding. She takes a few steps forward, reaching out to place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"How could you lose your _faith_? There will come a day when He brings us all home, the past forgiven and forgotten. Just because you live as a human, choose to be Bellamy Blake, doesn't mean that you're not still Abaddon."

"But I'm not!" he snaps, feeling his voice growing louder. "I'll never be Abaddon again. We were sent here to walk, alone, until this world dies, until we go with it. There _is_ no forgiveness, Clarke. There's only… _this_." He gestures desolately at the apartment, as if that will somehow drive his point home.

From the look on her face, he might as well have slapped her. Part of him regrets drawing her so sharply from her blissful ignorance, but mostly he's glad for it. She needs to learn, and he has the experience to tell her that salvation is an illusion, a lie passed down from generation to generation for humans to fight and kill and die for.

"Hanging on to my name doesn't make me Abaddon anymore, Clarke," he continues, reveling in the words and the way they fall from his lips like retribution. He doesn't want to hurt her, but part of him wants to shake her awake, to make her understand, realize that they've been abandoned to eternity. "Just like you're not Sariel anymore. Sariel is gone, was gone the second you were banished from the Garden."

Clarke's face grows darker and darker as a he speaks, yet there's still something earnest and hopeful left that he hasn't crushed. "Your punishment was handed down long, long ago," she insists. "You made a mistake, and now you're paying for it. Just like I am. Someday, it will be enough, and we'll be welcomed back. Someday, we will find redemption."

"I didn't do it," he retorts. He hadn't meant to reveal the truth, never wanted to discuss his fall from grace with her, but now that it's been laid between them, he knows she'll never let it go.

She's surprised by his admission, if perhaps a little skeptical. She says nothing, looking at him expectantly, waiting for his explanation.

Bellamy glares at her for a long moment, wondering if it would piss her off if he _didn't_ tell her his story - then wondering why he wants so badly to make her as angry as he is - before shrugging and spitting the truth at her like an accusation.

"I was never involved in the rebellion," he reveals. "I mean, sure, I was swayed by Lucifer and his words - we were young then, after all - but when he was recruiting, I refused to join up. It was more important to me to take care of my sister than to get myself in big trouble because Lucifer was being a diva."

"So then why did you get banished?" she asks insolently, crossing her arms with a glare.

"I didn't agree with Him, either. I didn't agree with how He viewed humanity, how He expected them to _worship_  Him for creating everything, but left them to their own devices, left them to murder and destroy and hate."

"You talk like a human atheist, yet you _know_  He exists," Clarke interrupts, looking at him with just a glint of disgust in her eyes, and his anger is reignited.

She has _no idea_ , who is she to judge?

So Bellamy scoffs in order to hide his pain. "He didn't like my opinions, even if I kept them to myself. All I ever wanted was to be free, for my sister and me. Instead, He cast me out, sent me here, alone, to this graceless purgatory, and I learned the hard way that there's no way to achieve redemption. He's not the kind, benevolent Being everyone likes to believe He is. He's cruel, and He's unforgiving, and He's wrathful."

She shakes her head stubbornly. "He's changed. He's different than He was. We were all young back then, even Him, in a lot of ways. When it's time, He'll bring us home."

"You don't get it, Clarke," he says, shaking his head, and she frowns at the patronizing tone in his voice. "He expelled me from the Garden, forced me to abandon my sister - in fact, that's probably why she's here, isn't it? Guilty by association. What, was she asking after me in the Garden? Was she sticking her nose where it didn't belong? Angels of Death aren't exactly loved, are they, Princess? No one ever trusted me and Octavia, so it's no wonder we're both banished-"

"Oh _shut up_!" Clarke cries. " _Enough_ with the pity party! Everyone so _conveniently_ forgets that I'm also an Angel of Death." He must look surprised, because she scoffs at him. "Yeah, that's right - Sariel, Angel of Healing, and Wisdom, _and Death_. I may not be as mistrusted as you and Azrael, but I am also responsible for some of the departed souls, and when I hear how the rest of our kind speak of the Angels of Death, don't you think it hurts me as well?"

Bellamy only gapes at her.

"Fine!" she snaps, taking a step closer to him. Her cheeks are flushed in anger and her hands are waving wildly as she speaks, and that pale golden glow around her has grown so intense he's certain a mortal wouldn't be able to look at her. "You want to know why I was kicked out? I wanted answers to the universe, secrets that have been hidden longer than any of us have existed. I was curious, I wanted to learn more, and I got caught and sent here. I made a mistake. And now I have to atone for my sins, and live my life down here - however long it may be - the way He wants everyone to. _That_ is the way to salvation, Bellamy. _That_ is the way home."

Bellamy laughs derisively, looking up at her from the ground with an expression so arrogant he wishes he could hit _himself_.

"You're full of shit, Clarke," he snaps, and he sees her eyes turn to ice, sees her fists clench at her sides, smearing her palms with charcoal. "Seeking the truth isn't - shouldn't be - a punishable offense. Wanting freedom shouldn't be either. Take it from me - I've been down here _alone_ for more than a thousand years. I've hated our kind, I've loved our kind, I've lived free of sins and I've lived sinfully out of spite. I have tried to find salvation just as often as I've resigned myself to damnation. There's no end to it, Clarke. Get used to this - it's all there is, all there will ever be. You'll never see Eden again." His words are loaded, barbed, filled with fury and hurt and longing, and he's not sure why he's argued so vehemently, why he's tried so very hard to tear her down. Perhaps it's because he wants to make her understand, to save her from the pain of realization he's experienced, to try and prevent the bone-crushing loneliness of a neverending half-life in purgatory. Mostly, he thinks he just wants someone else to be as miserable as he is.

He hates himself for it.

And, judging by the look on her face, Clarke hates him, too.

 _The Destroyer. Angel of Death. You deserve everything she throws at you, Abaddon_.

She doesn't curse him, doesn't scream or rage or argue or cry. She doesn't even _look_ at him. All she does is speak, a delicate murmur that strikes him so harshly he thinks he'll bleed out where he stands.

"Get out, Bellamy."

*****

_v. babe, there's something broken about this, but i might be hoping about this, oh what a sin_

Bellamy is jolted awake from his dark dreams by an urgent knocking on his door. He tries to shake the sleep from his eyes, rousing himself from the couch and stumbling blindly to the door. He jerks it open and-

"Clarke," he says, surprised, his voice rough from sleep.

She's staring at him earnestly, maybe a little nervously, chewing her lip.

He rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, blinking rapidly in the fluorescent hallway lights, and tries to remember the last time he saw her. It's been a decade if not two days. Time passes so differently for the Fallen.

"Can I come in?" she asks, and there's a strange hitch in her voice. It sounds a little like fear.

Wordlessly, he steps aside, opening the door further to let her in. She goes immediately to the lamp on the table, and soft light floods the room as he closes and locks the door.

When he turns to face her, she's standing there regarding him pensively; she has that look on her face that she always gets when she's about to deliver a speech (or a lecture), and he steels himself for whatever it is she's itching to say.

For a long moment, they just square off, staring at each other, and the space between them feels to Bellamy like an abyss, and he wonders if she would stand there and merely watch if he died trying to cross it.

Finally, she speaks, and her voice is uncertain. "I'm sorry to just show up here unannounced," she says, glancing at a clock that reads a quarter to three. She's fidgeting, he notices, and she's so very _Clarke_ right then, standing there wringing her fingers and biting her lip, so human, so unlike the divine Angel Sariel.

He just shrugs, trying to seem aloof and unconcerned, even though his heart is pounding and he can't take his eyes off her. He's still slightly pissed, but something tells him that as long as she's around, he'll always be a little mad at her, and he wonders then if that's such a bad thing.

She takes a step towards him, and suddenly she's confident, bathed in her holy, golden glow. She's more angelic now, holding herself with the authority of her position, and he feels as though he should cow before her. He is a demon to her angel, and prefers her as Clarke, for then he can just be Bellamy, her equal.

"I understand why you are the way you are, Bellamy," she says, and her voice is soothing, if still a little hard, as she takes another step. "I respect it."

Bellamy feels his jaw working. He's not sure where she's going with this, but she's stitching up the schism between them, and she's bathed in her angelic glow and the dim light of the lamp, and his pulse rushes through his veins.

A step forward, then one more. "I get that you've lived this graceless, unending life on Earth, that all you've wanted is to see Octavia again. I get that you've been forsaken, and maybe you're right, maybe this is a permanent punishment. Maybe we're never going home."

His brain sluggishly realizes that she's now only a breath away, that he could reach out and hold on to her and never let go. He's compelled to do exactly that.

And the way that she's looking at him, so full of hope and reverence, as though he holds the secrets to the universe she's so hungry for, as though he is forgiveness. No one has looked at him like that in a thousand years, or maybe _ever_ , and he can't remember quite what _love_ feels like, but he's fairly certain he's feeling it now.

She's looking up at him, her eyes impossibly blue, like the skies where they came from, and her hair golden like the sun, and perhaps she's still more of the divine angel than he wanted to admit, but their lives and their existences are so much more complicated than being _only_ a mortal or _only_ an angel. She may be Clarke standing here in front of him, but she didn't stop being Sariel because she was expelled from Eden. She is both, she is better for it, he loves her for who she was and who she has become.

She reaches up, watching her hand find its way to his cheek, cupping it and brushing her thumb across his freckled cheekbone. Bellamy leans into her touch unconsciously, his heart pounding in his chest as he hears her voice once more, so strong and steady and certain.

"Maybe there's more than one kind of redemption," she murmurs, and he only has a moment to wonder if perhaps she loves him, too, if maybe Abaddon is not quite the demon he believed himself to be, if Bellamy is better than he ought to be, if she's seen it all along.

Then her lips find his and her kiss consumes him, burning away the darkness inside, replacing it all with _her_ , with her light and her warmth.

He kisses her back, his hands tangling into her hair, bunching in her shirt, exploring her neck and jaw. She tastes like hope, like warmth, like _passion_ , and he wants more, needs _more_. He feels a bit like a parasite, seeking her heat so obsessively, trying ever harder to bring her closer.

He drags her backwards, kissing her intensely, towards his bed, shedding their clothes as they go, and he makes an idle joke about how they're angels, how they're supposed to be better than mankind, yet here they are, partaking in the sins of the flesh.

"Seems dumb, doesn't it, that sex is damnable, yet the destructive things humans do to one another, often in His name, aren't? We could go to Hell for this," Bellamy japes, his voice dark and husky.

Clarke stills for a moment beneath him, a little pensively, hanging on his lips and stroking his scalp with her fingertips and staring at him with pupils blown wide with desire. "Let us be damned, then," she says fiercely, and he knows he's gone then, knows that he's so deep in love with her that he'll never come out on the other side of this the same.

But honestly, screw the old laws, screw "sins of the flesh," for how can something fabled as damnation taste so decidedly of deliverance?

Bellamy whispers her name against her skin like a prayer, and for the first time in all the centuries he's been on this earth, he remembers what it's like to have faith, to _believe_ , and it's perhaps a little ironic that all it takes to get him to worship is her skin on his and the taste of her on his tongue.

*****

_vi. innocence died screaming, honey, ask me i should know, i slithered here from eden just to hide outside your door_

Bellamy knocks on Clarke's door, propping his arm on the frame, leaning and waiting for her to answer.

It only takes a minute before he hears her running heavily, and the door opens and she's there, peeking through the crack, opening it fully when she sees it's him.

"What the hell, Clarke?" he asks, grin fading slightly, and she looks a little guilty, standing back as he enters the apartment.

She's still in her pajamas (cotton shorts and a revealing tank top that are _doing things to him_ ), her hair is in a messy bun atop her head, and her toothbrush is sticking out of her mouth. She just shrugs, turning and racing back towards the bathroom.

"We're supposed to be at the airport to pick up Octavia and the Nephilim in an hour!" he admonishes as he follows her, leaning against the bathroom door and crossing his arms.

Clarke spits the toothpaste into the sink, then straightens and looks at him. " _Lincoln_ ," she reminds him forcefully, and he can't help but grin.

"I know, I just like riling you up," he remarks, leaning down to kiss her.

She gives in for only a moment before pushing him away, turning back to the mirror and pulling her hair free of its tie.

Twenty minutes later, they're emerging from her apartment, and as she's locking the door and stowing her keys in her bag, he can't help but stare fondly at her.

When she catches him, she actually _flushes_ lightly, and he can't believe it, can't believe that she'd still get flustered by him, that he can elicit such intimate responses from her, that, despite the newness of _this_ , they belong to each other.

"What?" Clarke asks, self-consciously touching her hair.

"I was just thinking," he replies absently, reaching out to tuck an errant strand behind her ear.

When she looks up at him through her lashes expectantly, he smiles at her. "I was just thinking," he clarifies, "that maybe we were banished for a reason. Maybe I was cast out to find myself, and then to find you. Maybe I fell from Eden to be right _here_."

Clarke smiles back brilliantly. "To be where, right outside my door?" she teases, leaning forward fondly.

Bellamy meets her halfway, planting a tender kiss on her waiting lips. "To be _with you_ , dumbass!"

She laughs, then checks her phone and swears. "We only have a half hour to get to the airport," she announces, pulling away and turning towards the elevators. She holds out her hand expectantly, and he laces his fingers through hers, knowing that he would travel to the ends of the universe, to Hell, to Eden, if it meant never having to let go. 

**Author's Note:**

> Just an endnote, none of the opinions that I wrote about (reflecting religion/God/etc.) necessarily reflect my own. I went where the story took me, where it seemed logical to go given what we know about these characters.
> 
> I won't divulge my own religious beliefs, but since it's a rather touchy subject, if anyone wants to talk in private about religion and how I've portrayed it here (in a calm, collected manner - idk if I'll actually get any hate over this, I doubt it considering the 100 fandom is generally chill, but I won't respond to anyone lambasting me), I absolutely will.
> 
> Please don't be afraid to drop a review, or to stop by and say hello!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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